Chennai, Apr 30 (IANS): Tamil Nadu has formed a Unified Command Centre (UCC) to manage bed availability in coordination with all the departments and directorates.

Functioning at the office of the National Health Mission (NHM), the UCC is mainly to co-ordinate the bed availability for critically-ill patients as well as the oxygen requirements in private hospitals. A new Twitter handle@104GoTN will be launched to support people in need of beds and all the requests will be handled in coordination with the UCC. The hashtag#BedsForTN will also be introduced to maximize the reach.

The Health Department has already directed the private hospitals to reserve 50 per cent of the beds for Covid care and asked to postpone elective surgeries by 10 days.

At least 15 of the 100 people tested for Covid-19 have tested positive in Chennai, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin with 17,897 fresh cases in the state and 107 deaths reported on Thursday.

This is the first time in 2021 that the state's death tally has crossed the three digit mark, while Chennai reported 40 deaths. As many as 34 of the total 37 districts have reported more than 100 fresh cases in a single day on Thursday and 22 districts reported deaths.